The answer, from a vigilante’s viewpoint is “yes,” but a conditional “yes.” There are many conditions and they vary from country to country, but basically it comes down to these:

Can a country issue its own currency and is it acceptable in global commerce?

Are a country’s initial conditions (outstanding debt, structural deficit, growth rate, demographic balance) moderate and can it issue future public debt as a substitute for private credit?

Can a country’s central bank be allowed to reflate via low or negative real interest rates without creating a currency crisis?

These three important conditions render an immediate negative answer when viewed from an investor’s lens focused on Greece for instance: 1) Greece can’t issue debt in its own currency, 2) its initial conditions and demographics are abominable, and 3) its central bank – The ECB – believes in positive, not negative, real interest rates. Greece therefore must extend a beggar’s bowl to the European Union or the IMF because the private market vigilantes have simply had enough. Without guarantees or the promise of long-term assistance, Prime Minister Papandreou’s promise of fiscal austerity falls on deaf ears. Similarly, the Southern European PIGS face a difficult future environment as its walls whisper “the house needs more money, the house needs more money.” It will not come easily, and if it does, it will come at increasingly higher cost, either in the form of higher interest rates, fiscal frugality, or both.

Gross sees the UK surviving. Same too with the US.

See here for Gross’s take on the healthcare bill and what it means for the deficit.

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